To Tempt a Wilde (7 page)

“Thank you,” he said finally. Simply.

She held his gaze for a moment, and then nodded her head, silently.

His glance fell to her hands again. Now she held both of them in her lap, palms up, again running her thumb over the palm of the other, massaging
them. Something she did when lost in thought.

He lifted one, turned it over in his, running the tips of his fingers over her palm. Despite evidence that she worked hard, there was a hint of softness, one that hinted that she hadn't always had to work the way she did.

He raised his eyes and found her somber, liquid gaze on his. His eyes went to her mouth.

Her perfect bow of a mouth.

The upper
rim had a slight protrusion, exactly in the center; a slight puffy swell that he'd felt the first time he'd kissed her.

He brought one finger up to trace over it, slowly. When her eyes fluttered shut he brought his head down and brushed his lips over her entire mouth, his tongue darting over the puckering with light, teasing flicks. She moaned softly, in a whispery sound of need.

He pulled away
and brought her palm up to his mouth, running his tongue over the raised calluses, in tribute to whatever had made her run, work any and every job she could in order to survive.

To whatever had brought her to him.

 

Althea drew in a shuddering breath when she felt the featherlike strokes of his tongue against her skin.

When his tongue followed the path up her wrist, kissing the length of her
arm, her body melted, liquid
heat easing from her, and every nerve ending in her body went up in flames.

The caresses were soft and light, fleeting, yet were the most sensual thing a man had ever done to her.

He licked the same path down again, ending at her fingers, drawing each digit deeply into his mouth to dart and play, swirling his tongue over the pads of her fingers before releasing each
one.

She opened eyes drowsy with need to meet his heated gaze.

When he drew her closer, unresisting, she went into his arms.

His light brown eyes darkened, filling with lustful, decadent intent.

With a harsh groan he cupped the back of her head, brought her close to his mouth and claimed her lips again.

This time he was methodical; slow and easy, he made love to her mouth.

Swiping his tongue
against her lips, slicking the seam of her lips in a lazy back-and-forth, seesawing motion, he encouraged her to open for him. Althea eagerly obliged, opening her mouth, giving over to his silent edict, and immediately she felt his slick tongue sweep inside.

The first stroke of his tongue, boldly entering her mouth, was like molten lava to her senses. Pervasive and deep.

With a deep, harsh groan
he brought her body against his until nothing separated them but their clothing.

So close Althea felt the hard, stiff ridge of his shaft intimately against her stomach.

She moaned, her eyes closing tight, reveling in the feel of his erection and his hard, sensual mouth against hers.

The kiss was crazy, wild and unlike anything she'd ever experienced.

He didn't just kiss her. He consumed her
in long sweeping motions with his tongue, he licked, stroked…made love to her mouth with hot, carnal ferocity.

Mewling softly, Althea lifted her arms and placed them around his neck, seeking…needing to be as close to him as she could, to give in to what had been building for weeks, grinding her body against his, caught up in the sensual web they'd mutually created.

Her hunger for him, his warmth,
his touch, rose sharp and engulfed her in flames the longer they kissed and caressed to near incendiary heat.

Not thinking of right or wrong, Althea completely gave herself over to the moment, over to Nate.

 

The moment she wrapped her arms around him, her soft hands tunneling through the hair at the back of his head, tugging him closer to her much smaller frame, Nate's body hardened to painful
readiness.

For most of the day he'd been in a steady state of semiarousal. Working so close to her, side-by-side, it had been nothing short of miraculous that he'd been able to keep his mind on the job of calving.

Impatient to feel her soft skin against his, her round, plump breasts naked against his chest, her long legs wrapped around his waist…his body firmly imbedded, deep, deep inside her
sweetness, he palmed both of her soft round globes in his hands and brought her into his
lap, lifting her enough so she straddled her legs on either side of his on the sofa.

She moaned when his hands tunneled beneath her shirt and skimmed over her unbearably soft skin, down her waist, until he reached the top band of her jeans.

Without losing contact with her mouth, her sweet, decadent mouth,
he brought his hands out of her jeans and back up her waist until he felt the thin band on the back of her bra. Deftly, he unsnapped it and impatiently shoved the bra down her body until it lay around her waist before shoving it completely from her body.

Lifting her shirt, he stared down at her unbound breasts, his heart beating in a hard, unrelenting rhythm simply from seeing her this way.

“No, don't hide from me,” he said, his breath coming out harshly when she placed her hands over her freed breasts. “Please don't hide from me. God, you're beautiful.” His last words were torn from him.

He placed his hands beneath the thin T-shirt, skimming them up the length of her stomach until he reached the undersides of her firm, round breasts.

Gently he cupped them, their soft weight filling
his hands to perfection. He ran a thumb over each tightly drawn nipple and watched in fascination when they spiked, growing long, hard against his fingers.

His eyes sought hers.

There was lust and desire in them, yet there was also a thread of fear, one that made Nate pause.

“I'm sorry,” he said, his voice low, deep. “I'll go slow. I promise. You don't have to fear anything with me, Althea.
I'll never hurt you.” The promise was made with sincerity.

The depth of his sincerity, although real, shook Nate. Brought his impatience to feel her body against his to a momentary standstill.

The truth was, as much as he wanted to strip her bear, imbed himself deep inside her heat, he would rather cut out his own heart than be the one responsible for hurting her.

Her slumberous eyes held
a bright sheen, a vulnerability that tugged at his heart and made him want to find the bastard responsible for putting it there. From what she'd said, his instincts told him the man who worked with her father had something to do with whatever had made her run, whatever had caused the fear lurking in her eyes.

Beyond her father's death, there was another reason behind her vulnerability.

He withdrew
his hand and thumbed away the tears that had escaped and now trickled down her soft cheeks, landing at the corners of her bow-shaped lips.

He bent down, captured the tears in his mouth, and softly kissed her lips.

“All I'm asking is that you trust me. I won't hurt you.”

While he had been determined not to get his heart involved with another woman, somehow this woman, a woman who still held
her secrets guarded closely, had managed to pierce a chink in his emotional armor.

If his brothers or Lilly knew, he'd never hear the end of it.

“I won't do anything to you that you don't want done. I promise you,” he said, staring into her eyes. Unable to resist, he kissed her soft lips again before he raised his
head. Reading the hesitancy in her eyes, he continued. “Anytime you want to stop,
just say the word, okay?”

For long moments she stared at him, her eyes searching his, for what Nate didn't know. He waited.

He'd wait as long as it took.

The strength of the self-admission shook him to the core.

As she stared up at him, again he was struck by her fragile beauty.

Her large eyes scanned his face, searching for what Nate didn't know. Her tongue snaked past her kiss-swollen lips
to lick the full bottom rim, and he bit back a groan of need.

But it was her eyes that did it to him, forced him to still the crazy need in him, the need to pick her up, carry her to the floor and make love to her until neither one of them could think straight, until all fear and hesitancy vanished as though it never had been.

That same wild need he felt, he saw reflected in her eyes, behind
the hesitancy.

When she finally nodded her head, relief swept over him, and his body reacted to the simple declaration of trust.

“Yes.”

The one word was all he needed to hear.

Nate closed his eyes briefly, opened them and kept his gaze on hers. Placing his hands on either side of her face, he leaned down and kissed her, his hands gliding down to reach under her shirt and drag it up her body,
the ends bunched in his fists as he stared.

Keeping his eyes on hers, he captured one of her nipples, suckled on it, pulling it deeply into his mouth
until it spiked again, long and hard, bumping softly against the roof of his mouth.

She arched herself fully into his mouth, called his name softly in erotic entreaty. Nate growled against her plump breast, pulling her pliant body so tight against
his he felt every soft curve of her body.

As his mouth caressed his breasts, he picked her up, cradled her in his arms and walked toward the fireplace, their mouths still linked.

Once there, he placed her down on the plush brown rug, and after giving her one final kiss, one last caress, he reluctantly broke away and rose, kicked off his boots and socks, keeping his attention on hers the entire
time.

“Wha…what are you going to do to me?”

At her words he paused with his hand on the front snap of his jeans.

“I'm going to do whatever you want me to do.”

He slowly unsnapped his jeans.

“I'm going to taste and caress every inch of your body.”

He drew the zipper down and began to peel his jeans down his legs.

“I'm going to lavish…worship—” He kneeled down, placed a kiss on her mouth,
“Every delicious—” he rained kisses down her chin, her throat “—part of you,” he finished huskily, and drew her turgid nipple deeply into his mouth, then slowly released it.

His gaze sought hers. “If you let me.”

 

“If you let me…”

Althea's eyes fluttered closed, a moan of acceptance tumbling from her mouth.

At the current state she was in, Althea doubted there was anything she wouldn't
allow him to do to her.

She drew in a deep, shaky breath as she lay on the rug, watching Nate as he removed his clothes, slowly unveiling his body to her, first casting his shirt over his head and with careless disregard, tossing it on the floor, revealing his thick, hard chest to her hungry gaze.

She ran her eyes up the length of him, starting at his feet, past thick thighs that bulged with
muscles, her heart stammering against her chest when her gaze lit on his shaft.

His thumbs hooked into his shorts and his shaft sprang free. Thick, hard, erect, it lay against the tightly packed muscles of his abdomen, the mushroom cap hitting him well above his navel.

Swallowing past the constriction in her throat, her eyes traveled over his rock-hard chest to the small nipples that were a
shade darker than his dark caramel skin, until she met his eyes.

His body was a work of art, the picture of raw, masculine perfection.

When her eyes met his, the look in them, an indescribable mix of lust and need, caused an answering need in her to rise, forcing her to clench her legs together as she felt her own essence trickle down and pool into her panties.

 

Nate's nostrils flared, his
shaft growing harder when he saw her reaction to him, the way her slumberous eyes unashamedly gazed at every part of him, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.

She in turn made his blood boil, the picture of pure
sensuality as she lay on the rug, half-clothed, her hair a messy tumble around her shoulders.

Her nipples, dark, were silhouetted against her T-shirt, the fat nipples protruding,
pushing against the thin fabric.

His eyes dropped to her jeans. The top buttons were unfastened and the scrap of pink lace of her panties hid that part of her he desperately needed to get at now.

Keeping his gaze on hers, his hand snaked down and grasped his shaft, rock-hard and ready. Joining her on the thick rug, he covered her mouth with his.

Tugging and pulling at the upper rim, he sucked
her lip deep inside his mouth, running his tongue over the erotic little puffy flesh in the center until he felt it tighten.

He released her mouth, his breathing harsh. She moaned, a helpless sound of distress at the disconnect.

Placing his forehead against hers, he fought to control his body, whispering, hoarsely. “Before we go any further, I have to make sure this is what you want, Althea.
If we don't stop now, I don't think I can.”

He drew back, moving far enough away that he could see her face, searching her eyes.

In them was the same wild need. A need that acknowledged what he felt, that she too didn't want to stop. The fire building between them no longer one she could or wanted to contain.

With that, he went to work on her clothes.

At last she lay nearly naked on the rug,
her pretty full breasts bared to him, her long legs stretched out on the floor, one leg bent, one hand covering her panties as though to shield herself from him.

Nate brushed her hand away, replaced it with his, running his hand over the short, curly sprigs of hair covering her mound.

“Don't hide yourself from me,” he murmured. Leaning down, he replaced his hand with his mouth, kissing her
through the silky material.

Her body vaulted sharply off the rug, arching until her breasts nearly met her bent knee. He fingered aside the elastic along the leg of her panties, worked a finger inside and rubbed against her core.

“Nate…no, what—” she panted, before throwing her head back, moaning sharply when he placed both hands beneath her knees, pushed her legs far apart and pressed aside
her panties to place hot, languid, intimate kisses between her slickening folds.